


Here's To Drinks (In The Dark)

by VesperRegina



Series: Shake It Out [2]
Category: Galileo (TV Japan)
Genre: Gen, Long-Distance Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 08:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1380727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperRegina/pseuds/VesperRegina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone needs a touchstone, and when you miss someone fiercely, you tend to be very sentimental.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's To Drinks (In The Dark)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ahria, for beta-reading and hand-holding. You're wonderfully encouraging.
> 
> I've decided to make this a series, and although I have unformed ideas for _maybe_ two more installments, I'm not stressing about how long it takes to get done. So sit tight, it will be continued. I meant to get this done for Utsumi's birthday, but that didn't work out so well.

Utsumi didn't even get a strange look when she went through security. Not a one. Why she took it along, she didn't really know, because as gifts go... well, it didn't make sense. But she put it into her purse anyway -- though her carry-on would have been a better choice -- and the weight of it there was... pleasant, yes. He'd thought of her... he'd put thought into the gift, and despite how strange it was she found herself checking to make sure she had it, brushing her fingertips over the smoothness of the box and opening it to see the silver chunk inside. And despite every effort to stop, the corners of her mouth turned up.

\--

Getting swept along by her comrades when she let slip that it was her birthday had seemed a good idea at the time. To be fair, she hadn't protested, had let her smiles and agreement take over her face, grateful that she wasn't going to be spending it alone. It had been fun, stress-relieving, more than probably a mistake, considering it was the last of the weekend.

It wasn't her birthday anymore, technically, midnight having gone by about ten minutes ago, and she couldn't care less, because she wanted to plant her face into her pillow and breathe in the scent of it, the comfort that came with it -- funny how one smell could make a person think of home -- but first she had to navigate to that bed. Off-kilter furniture, swaying walls, oh yes, she was drunk. All the more reason to shut her eyes and go to sleep.

She giggled to herself as she touched the wall, making sure it was going to stay put, then pressed her lips together and made a stern face, and thought of how her mother would admonish her. "Drink some water, first, Kaoru. Remember, you're not twenty anymore," she said, and it was almost as if she was there.

Movements always seemed slower and more fluid, like watching the trail from a sparkler, when she was drunk, and watching water flow into her cup from the tap was mesmerizing to the point that she almost couldn't remember what she was doing. She put a stop to the waterfall before it slopped out, just in time, poured off a little, and leaned against the sink. She took a chug, drinking it until she started to feel a little sick from not stopping. She touched her mouth with the back of her hand to dry it, and then refilled the glass.

"Bed now," she told herself.

The fog wrapped around her head cast the trek to her bed into a massive venture that she couldn't remember making, not after she inhaled the smell of her sheets, and opened her eyes. She blinked, turned her head and spied the glass of water on the bedside stand, a testament to the fact that she'd at least protected it until she was able to set it down. She brought her hand up; looked at the hands of her watch. Not much time had passed, maybe half an hour. She rolled over, covered her face with her hand, and took a deep breath, then sat up, much too fast for her physical state. She spun -- the room spun -- and she fell forward, muttering, "Oh, smart move."

She reached forward, her hand creeping across the surface of the bed, and then she scooted forward, her face still planted into the covers, obscured by loosened strands of her hair. She reached down, scrabbling underneath her bed, until her fingers touched the corner of a box. She said, "There you are." Her attempts to pry it out didn't work, and she leaned her torso over the side of the bed, all the blood rushing to her head. She shut her eyes, and saw dark grey spots against dark red. Using both her hands, she pulled the box out -- a plain shoebox with a hinged lid -- and opened it. She muttered unintelligible nonsense as she rummaged in the box, going by touch, until she found what her fingers had been questing for. "I hope you appreciate what I go through for you, Professor," she said. "It's a wonder I haven't been sick all over this present you gave me."

She closed the lid, and pushed herself back up, slipping down only once, and unable to catch herself from also letting let slip a dirty imprecation. The smaller box in her hand provided good support to leverage herself onto her back, and she held it aloft, her eyes almost crossing as she focused on it. She spat out some hair that had stuck to her mouth, and said, "It may be almost a year old now, but I don't care. It's the only present someone else got for me. You hear that, Professor? Here's to you and this stupid thing that makes me happy."

She opened the box. She took out the chunk of germanium Yukawa had given her and turned it over. Its surface was familiar, learned through many such contemplations, and her fingers touched various points with fondness. She closed her eyes, breathing open-mouthed, and brought her hand down to rest on her chest, over her heart. It was the last movement she made until she woke in the morning.

\--

Of course, that was a mistake. It was stupid in more than one way, since with the clarity of waking came the realization that she'd passed her limit, something she was usually more careful about. It wasn't helped by the roiling in her stomach, even without moving, and the heavy clotted feeling in her head. It was time, her body said, to remember there was a price to pay and one can only sleep so long. Time. How long had she slept? She kept her movements slow -- sudden movements would only cause trouble -- and opened her eyes to glance at her watch. She groaned when it was earlier than she expected; idiotic response when she'd need that extra time.

That was not where the wall was supposed to be. She was not where she was supposed to be -- or rather, her head wasn't, because usually it was on her pillow, and usually that was over there, not over here -- she gave up thinking and attempted to roll over, just on her side, no big plans here, just an easy transition.

She'd rolled over onto something hard. She closed her hand around it, and brought it up to her face.

She stared at it through bleary sleepers in her eyes, out of focus grey, grasping thought until it became memory, and those memories filled in with definition, like ink seeping across a wet page, and when it was all colored in, she shut her eyes, and said, "Utsumi, sentiment isn't logical at all."

But she still laid there, fingers around it, swallowing, until she gathered her strength, and sat up. Water. She needed water and something bland to eat, and to use the toilet... and she really needed to reorganize that list.

Instead, she sat with the germanium in her lap, looking down at it. Her mouth twisted down, and she pushed down an emotion she was better off without. She shook her head, once, and whispered, "You better have left me a message, because even if you forgot, even if you got too busy, I will haunt you on Skype until you do remember, once I get through this day."

\--

The symbol beside Yukawa's name indicated he wasn't online. The brief message she'd sent him, half-an-hour earlier, had gone unanswered. Utsumi sighed, and tried to smooth away the tension her frowning had caused around her eyes, passing her hands over them.

"I knew you'd forget," she muttered. She shut the lid on her laptop, and stood, but there was no aim to her standing. She grit her teeth, and left it there, walking to the kitchen and then back again.

"Okay, I'm angry, but I made a promise to myself, even though you probably don't care at all how hard I'm trying."

So she took a deep breath, and let it out in a rush, let go of her feelings and smiled, and sat down. She attempted a call, and as expected, there was no answer, and as expected, she saw the option to leave a video message. She kept it short. She put the screen down again, unable yet to log out, and leaned forward, putting her head down on the laptop.

"Here's a question no one's going to answer for me... why did I have to be friends with such a difficult man? Huh?"


End file.
